Cognitive Dissonance, Normalcy Bias, and Survival, with Wonder Woman, Bigfoot, Johnny Carson, Stalin, and a Bond Girl.

“So you really think Morgan thinks I have a racial bias? This is so unfair. I would’ve marched on Selma if it was on Long Island.” – Seinfeld

I’ll have to admit, when I was doing this meme, I forgot where I was going with it.  Which was appropriate. 

This post is the result of a reader request by frequent commenter and occasional photo contributor 173dVietVet, and I’m glad to do it because it keeps me away from plumbing.  I had actually already started my notes for another topic (you’ll see it next Friday and it will be amazing, if I have enough beer before I start writing) when he suggested that I post about the interplay of Cognitive Dissonance, Normalcy Bias, and Survival.

This post sounded like way more fun than re-plumbing the drain line under my sink (this is true).  Despite the protestations of The Mrs. that we need a silly old sink in the kitchen I dug right into the topic, especially since Friday is typically health day and this topic is broad enough to cover both personal health and the broader issues related to disasters and living through crisis that have recently become a theme here.

Maybe . . .  it may have been a way for 173dVietVet to see if I’m not a computer mind sent from the future to influence the United States in 2019 to make more PEZ® workers for our PEZ© mines.  Who can say?  Regardless, 173dVietVet (and the other 10,000 people who will read this), here it is.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

Cognitive Dissonance is the state of holding two opposing ideas in your mind, or of having beliefs that run counter to your actions.  The best example I ever ran into in real life was when I was at a convenience store and two Spandex®-clad bicyclists came in – helmets still on, complete with wrap-around sunglasses and smelly padded butt shorts.  One of the guys was loudly criticizing every item the other guy picked up.  Trust me, the guy was loud enough that everyone in the store could hear him.  I was NOT eavesdropping like I do with the neighbors on a Saturday night.

• “No, you can’t drink that, man. Fructose will kill you, after it makes your children sterile.”
• “Dude – the bleached flour in that is empty calories. It will screw up your metabolism and make the Martians attack.”
• “Ah, man – that jerky has nitrates. Really bad for you.  Also, no one has ever loved me.”

Then he got up to the counter.

• “I’ll have this, and . . . a pack of Marlboros®.” He looked at his bicycling buddy.  “Yeah, man, I know.”

That’s Cognitive Dissonance in action.  I was buying Copenhagen® and Cheddar Ruffles™ at the same time, so my ability to criticize was pretty limited.  I’ve since given up the Copenhagen©, but you can rip those Cheddar Ruffles® from my cold, dead, orange fingers.

If you get tired of Soylent Lays®?  You can just gnaw on a neighbor!  Spoiler:  in the movie, companies were making food from people.  But apparently it was tasty.  Mmmm, tasty people.

Another example?  An attorney that goes to church.  Normally lawyers burst into flame upon entering a Holy Place, but I heard California filed a restraining order against God, and the Ninth Circuit upheld it.  Last I heard, God is has appealed to the Supreme Court®.  Sadly, he might lose, since he doesn’t have any lawyers in Heaven to represent him.

Like anything, Cognitive Dissonance goes from mild (our bicycling smoker in the example above) to extreme (pretending Trump® isn’t president because you don’t like mean old Cheeto™ man).  In the middle is anyone who liked the latest Star Wars™ movies.  Or are they in the middle?  They might be the sickest of all of us.

In doing research about this topic, I found that studies of Cognitive Dissonance had different origins for different peoples.  It turns out that Cognitive Dissonance in European-descended people is driven by the concepts of shame and guilt.  Shame, in this case, is the feeling brought out by violating a group norm.  Mental values based in Shame are built around what other people will think of you.  Guilt is violating an absolute right and wrong.  Everyone on the planet could be dead, and you’d still feel Guilt.

In East Asians, Cognitive Dissonance was only built around Shame.  Guilt didn’t play a part in it.  If everybody on Earth died?  You’d be free at last!  I have no other data on any other ethnicities, so don’t ask.  I’m thinking the researcher did the study in Chinese restaurant in North Dakota.

Some other odd things I discovered about Cognitive Dissonance:

• Initiations and hazing – people who are subjected to rough rites of initiation actually have increased commitment to the group hazing them. I guess the lesson here is, don’t skimp.  Rent the goat.  And get the extended insurance plan on the goat.  You know why.
• People highlight the positives of the choice they made … after they made the choice, not before. Rationalization is a way to smooth over Cognitive Dissonance, and also explains why I justify the late night tipsy Amazon.com purchases to The Mrs.  Everyone needs a life size Bigfoot® statue, right?

The Mrs. took this picture after we bought Bigfoot One.  I had this statue until The Mrs.’ dog ate it.  Then I bought another one, but I keep it inside.  Sadly, this is a true story.  Bigfoot deserves to be free.

Essentially, when your brain is faced with the contradictions that spring from Cognitive Dissonance, it has (as far as I can tell) four choices:

• Change a belief,
• Change an action,
• Pretend our actions don’t make us big fat hypocrites, or
• Ignore it all and get a cookie.

Orwell even talked about it in his future history novel 1984.  A great example of Cognitive Dissonance in action was the way that supporters minimized Bill Clinton’s horrible behavior in the Lewinski mess.  (Actually it was Clinton’s mess, but this is a family-friendly blog.)  And mainstream Republicans were no better in the whole “invade Iraq” mess, for absolute fairness.  Supporters, like hazed college freshmen pledging Omega, seem to like politicians more when they lie to them.

Go figure.

If you haven’t seen Animal House®, that makes me die a little inside.  It’s the Star Wars™ of anti-Cognitive Dissonance movies.

Okay, that’s Cognitive Dissonance.  What’s Normalcy Bias?

First, Normalcy.  Really?  Did we really need that word?  I guess I’ll allow it.  Guys, the English language has 171,476 words according to the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and your ‘umble ‘ost only knows about 45,000 of them.  Unless your new word involves ways that aliens have sex in clown costumes in a vacuum while in orbit over Mongolia on a Tuesday?  There’s probably already a word for it.

Second, what is Normalcy Bias?  Normalcy Bias is just a belief that things are going to return to “normal” at some unspecified point in the future, often through the actions of some unspecified savior, like Johnny Carson returning from the dead and eating the livers of all of the current late night hosts while they were still alive.  Oh, wait, that was a dream I had the other night.  Never mind.

The answer is no, not funny at all.

Third, I think that Normalcy Bias is just a subset of Cognitive Dissonance.    Here are some examples:

• Underestimating the probability of a flood hitting your house. This is not a personal example – I’ve checked FEMA flood maps on every house I’ve ever bought – before I bought them.  I remember talking to a friend who thought I was lying when I told him that.  Right now?  If a flood takes out my house, I’m expecting to see a little old man with an Ark.
• Underestimating disaster impacts. FEMA is really good at this – in the middle of Hurricane Ike, FEMA was on the radio.  Thankfully, we had a crank-radio and were able to get the vital advice that lists of available FEMA services were . . . on the Internet at FEMA.gov.    Telling people with no power (and no cell service) to go to the Internet to get the latest updates.  Yay, FEMA!  Why don’t you suggest direct brain transfer?
• The Roman citizens in Great Britain standing on the pier and waving goodbye to the last Legion in Rome as it went off to put down an uprising of those pesky Gauls. The Romans will be back soon, right?  Things will be normal again?  Right?  (Rome, Britain, and Money: Why You Can’t Find Fine China after the Apocalypse)
• King Arthur’s legend that he’ll return to save England – it’s just one example of the hidden and secret king that will return one day to Make England Great Again. Assuming any English are left when Arthur gets back.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about Normalcy Bias in his book The Black Swan. He describes the belief that his family had that things would “return to normal” in Lebanon, even after it was ripped apart by civil war between 1975 and 1990.  They talked about how they’d be able to return, and how things would . . . return to normal.

When Taleb wrote this, this was a picture that was taken in Lebanon – 2006.  I’m not thinking this is a great place for long term real estate growth.  Unless you have quite a large number of Trident® missiles – 3 out of 4 despots recommend Trident© if you chew missiles.

I think that Normalcy Bias is pretty deep seated function of the human brain – I see too many examples, both in my own thinking and in my observations of others to believe that it’s abnormal.

During a crisis, that’s a problem.  The biggest dangers in a crisis are:

1. Not accepting that the world has changed, maybe forever. People who change their world view soonest . . . win.  An example:  I was driving and saw a car pulled over on the side of the road.  The driver had obviously just wrecked his BMW®.  He was wandering around, dazed.  “My BMW® . . . it’s wrecked!”  He was distraught.  I said to him, “Man, forget about the car – your left arm has been severed!”  He became even more upset.  “My God,” he screamed, looking down at the place his arm should have been, “Where is my Rolex©!”  Okay, that didn’t happen.  But I’m allowed to dream.
2. Not realizing or believing that changes could happen. This happens before the crisis, and the result is that you’ve never planned.  Not having planned, you’ve got no preparations.  The best cure for this is nearly getting caught up in a disaster.  My daughter, Alia S. Wilder, recently found out that her house was in a zone that could be flooded.    Even more oops?  She had zero preparations.  Being evil, I didn’t give her answers.  I asked questions.  “Oh, so you bought a month’s worth of food.  Good.  How much water to you have?”  Her eyes were really opened to the huge vulnerabilities that she had.  I slept well that night, even though I had to shower to get the evil off of me.
3. Thinking that other people share your values. They don’t.  I assure you that there is no neighborhood in Modern Mayberry I would be afraid to be in at any time of the day or night.  If you carry that same lack of awareness to, say, Chicago, the results might be less than optimal.  Monday’s post will be about the implications of this logical fallacy.  The sooner you internalize this, the better.
4. Failing to practice. Just as having the neatest nickel-plated 1911 with laser sights and the chainsaw attachment won’t help you if you don’t practice, if you don’t practice your disaster response from time to time, it won’t help you, either.  You won’t be able to find your preps.  They’ll be in the wrong spot.  Or, worse yet, your child moved them and the mice got into your rice, the parakeet got into your wheat, and your dehydrated food has been mildewed.  That’s a bad day.  But it’s a much better day if none of the steers got into your beer.
5. Thinking that someone else will save you. They won’t.  This is why I hate the term “first responders.”  It puts the responsibility for a crisis on the wrong person.  If someone is breaking into my house – I am the first responder.  If Pugsley cuts deeply into his thumb while whittling, I am, again, the first responder.  In any real crisis, the “first responders” have probably missed many of the issues I’ve listed above.  During Hurricane Ike, I heard one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard – pleas from the radio announcer to bring food, gasoline, generators, and water to . . . the “first responders.”  The “first responders” weren’t an asset.  They were a liability that couldn’t even save themselves.  I’m not bragging, but the Wilder family was at home, eating steak.    We had enough food for weeks.  Again, The Mrs. and I were the first responders.  Mmm.  Steak.
6. Not realizing the implications of changes. In apocalypse movies, one typical means of comic relief is the former banker/stockbroker/boss who, in a fit of self-important pomposity, asks, “Do you know who I am?”  Immediately this character (who you’re not supposed to like), gets his ego shot down as either the hero or bad guy shows him that the rules have changed.  One humorous version of this is in the underrated Kevin Costner flick The Postman, when he meets Tom Petty.  The Postman says to Tom Petty, “I know you, you’re famous.”  Petty replies, “I was.    Kinda.”  At the end, Tom Petty asks Costner, “Are you The Postman?”  Costner nods.  Petty says, “I’ve heard of you.  You’re famous.”  It was a brilliant way to turn that trope on its head, and pointed out a lesson we’ll talk about in a minute in item 1 of the list below.  I guess that depends on your reading speed.
7. Not adapting to the reality of the changes. This is a little different than number six.  A great example is the Kulaks that I wrote about recently.  When Stalin came to power they thought they could negotiate with him since they were the economic engine of the U.S.S.R.  Spoiler alert:  they couldn’t.  Score Stalin: 20,000,000, Kulaks: 0.  A less sinister version of this is when you flip a light switch during a blackout, and a second later feel like an idiot, thankfully Stalin’s ghost doesn’t send you to the Gulag for that.

It always cracks me up that AntiFa© thinks they won’t be the first people sent to the camps.  Loyalty?  The commies can work with that.  Being disloyal to the country that provides the framework for your material success?  Gulag first.  But you get to choose the top bunk.  Yay!

Every single point I’ve made above can kill you, given the right circumstances.  If I were evil, like an ancient emaciated grizzled she-demon direct from Hell, or Madonna® (I’m sorry, I repeat myself) I’d just leave you here to twist in the wind, stuck in a never ending cycle of Cognitive Dissonance and Normalcy Bias that spirals into a black hole of self-despair that ultimately leaves you as a tweeker midwife sitting in a ripped-up vinyl booth in an Ecuadoran Dairy Queen® with no Blizzard™ machine, delivering Ecuadorian children for leftover chicken tenders.  And there’s no gravy in Ecuador.  I think that’s because the toilets circle the other way.  Maybe.

But I’m not that mean.  Well, I am that mean, but I’m still begging for working for that Nobel® Peace™ Prize©, or maybe a lousy MacArthur Award™, so I’d best pretend to be a loving, caring human being.  Besides, no body?  No crime.  Right?  That’s what my lawyer keeps telling me.  I hope he’s right.

I know what you are asking, “John Wilder, how can I learn to make comedy jokes like you?”  See?  You’re dead in a disaster already!  A disaster is no joking matter, unless it happens to someone else.  But, following are some preventive (the word preventative, while in the dictionary, has that stupid extra “ta” in the middle and I refuse to engage with a single ta – two ta’s only) steps that you can take to, well, live.  And these steps apply to both a disaster and your life.  In the end, your life is a disaster.  I’m not judging, but if you treat your life like a metaphorical disaster, you’ll be healthier and more prepared.

1. Humility: Know what you don’t know.  As Aesop (LINK) perspicaciously quoted Donald Rumsfeld the other day:  “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.”  People liked to bag on Rumsfeld, mainly because they were jealous of his mad dancing skills and that he bested John Cusack in an arm-wrestling contest once so he could win the chance to date Demi Moore.  This was before she began to resemble beef jerky, so it was worth it at the time.  Regardless, this is a great quote on humility.  Know what you don’t know.  Either learn it, or compensate for it.
2. Prepare Generally for General Disasters: Most things you can prepare for are the same, or at least rhyme like poetry used to rhyme before cigarette smoking smelly people in black berets with low-testosterone face hair (high testosterone for the females, which looks about the same) ruined it.  Hitler’s ghost won’t re-start World War II, and Abraham Lincoln’s ghost won’t be around to start Civil War II, but human needs don’t change all that much, regardless of what disaster you face.  You have to eat.  You have to have water.  You have to have Internet.  Oh, wait – sorry.  Water is optional now, according to the WHO (The Who, The WHO, Cavemen, Child Labor, and We Won’t Get Fooled Again).  You can quote me on the following:  A multi-tool is a crappy tool.  Unless it’s your only tool.  And it weighs less than your tool kit.  Never expect that preparations will be exact replacements of what you really need.  But as long as you have Internet, it’s all good, right?
3. Do Things That Take You Out Of Your Comfort Zone: No, this isn’t an excuse to try to convince you into a Multi-Level-Marketing© scheme to strain your friendships by selling a product that ultimately is the object of a 60 Minutes™ investigation (this happened to my ex-wife, for reals).    Take a different road to work.  How well do you know the lay of the land in the ten miles around your house?  How well do you know your neighbors, I mean, reciprocally?  The telescope views don’t count no matter how hot she is.  Imagine you had to do without electricity.  Do without it for a night.  Two nights.  Spend a night in a tent in the back yard.  Go camping.  Eat a burger . . . without fries.  Your routine is your enemy, except for the lifting and healthy bits.  Change it up.
4. Practice with your tools: Heh, hehe, hehehe, he said tools.  Okay, Beavis, knock it off.  If it’s a pistol.  If it’s a chainsaw.  If it’s a hammer.  Heh, hehe, hehehe, he said hammer.  Practice with it.  80% of your proficiency will come for 20% of your effort, unless you’re me trying to learn guitar, because that’s just hopeless.  Become mediocre now, when there’s time, that will help with number one, up above.  At least then you’ll know what you don’t know.
5. Play “What if?” mind games: I do this all the time.  Sometimes I end up in crazy stupid places – as in the entire world is gone and leaves just me and the cast of The Breakfast Club and the cast of Who fighting over who gets the last deodorant stick in the world and Sophie Marceau is the only one who can save me.  Okay, that’s not really productive.  But when you think about what could happen, you become mentally prepared if it does happen.

Sophie is the one on bottom.  James Bond® is the one on top.  I guess I might need to explain that to the folks in California.  I’m just worried that the next movie might have Jeanette Bond, who has never even been to England at all.  Because what’s more British than that?

So, there it is.  I guess I have a sink to fix.  173dVietVet, how did I do?

Also, if you have a pet topic, toss it out, either in the comments or at my email at movingnorth@gmail.com.  I won’t promise that I’ll do it, but your odds are good.  100% as of this writing.  If I don’t do it, it’s not you, it’s that I think I’d suck at it.